Marine amputee makes Christmas wish come true

Several years ago, Marine veteran and DAV member Matt Amos was struck by a Christmas wish from a ten-year-old boy.

Through a social media post called “Austin’s Christmas Wish,” Amos learned of a young boy who had been born without his right forearm. According to the post, he’d never wanted a prosthetic before, but he was at a new school now and was struggling to make new friends who didn’t understand his disability.

Amos understood Austin’s wish. Years earlier, in 2011, while Matt was in Afghanistan on his third deployment, he stepped on a pressure plate IED. The explosion resulted in the loss of both of Matt’s legs—one above the knee, one below.

Amos knew he needed to make something happen for the little boy.

When Amos needed help, DAV was there to guide him and his family through a difficult claims process and now he was there to help others.

“I ended up doing about two-and-a-half years of recovery,” says Amos. “I got prosthetics, but they weren’t working for me.”

He finally found the right prosthetics through a local business, Peeples Prosthetics. As it turned out, Amos had a gift for connecting with other amputees and the company asked him to come work for them.

Amos began helping out with patients and talking with them, which all came easy because he wants “what’s best for these people.” Now he wanted the best for Austin.

When Amos told his co-workers about Austin’s Christmas wish, they worked together to find a solution.

Steve Peeples, the owner of Peeples Prosthetics, said, “Let’s do it!” when Matt told him about Austin and provided the use of his private plane for the young boy to fly from Ohio to Kansas, where he received his new prosthetic for Christmas, all at no cost to his family.